Several hundred companies are being targeted regularly, at least every few weeks, while a smaller number of companies are attacked intermittently. Over time a few companies fall off the lists completely, to be replaced by new and up-and-coming targets of opportunity.

Phishing attacks occurred most frequently in the Payment, Financial, and Webmail sectors.

There has been an increase in the number of phishing attacks using free hosting providers or website builders.

In the new gTLDs and in ccTLDs, much of the phishing activity was concentrated in a small number of domains.

Of malware incidents documented Brazil, many were spread via Facebook, and half were hosted in the United States. A few pharming incidents were documented.

There were at least 255,065 unique phishing attacks worldwide. This represents an increase of over 10% from the 230,280 attacks we identified in 2015. An attack is defined as a phishing site that targets a specific brand or entity. A single domain name can host several discrete phishing attacks against different banks, for example.

The attacks occurred on 195,475 unique domain names.2 This is the most we have recorded in any year since we began these reports in 2007. The number of domain names in the world grew from 287.3 million in December 2014 to 329.3 million in December 2016.

Of the 195,475 domains used for phishing, we identified 95,424 domain names that we believe were registered maliciously by phishers. This is an all-time high, and almost three times as many as the number we found in 2015. A little over half of these registrations were made by Chinese phishers. The other 100,051 domains were almost all hacked or compromised on vulnerable Web hosting. This means that nearly half of all domains that hosted phishing sites were maliciously registered.

Seventy-five percent of the malicious domain registrations were in just four TLDs: .COM, .CC, .PW, and .TK. More than 90% of malicious domains were found in just 14 TLDs. Please see pages 16-17 for more detail.

We counted 679 targeted brands. This dropped from 783 in 2015. Phishers are still creating kits dedicated to attacking both popular targets and new targets.

The total number of phishing attacks in 2016 was 1,220,523, a 65% increase over 2015.

n the fourth quarter of 2004, the APWG saw 1,609 phishing attacks per month. In the fourth quarter of 2016, APWG saw an average of 92,564 phishing attacks per month, an increase of 5,753% over 12 years.

Fraudsters in Brazil are using both traditional phishing and social media to defraud Internet users. They are also using technical tricks to make it harder for responders to stop theses scams.

The Retail/Service sector continued to be the most- attacked category of victim, suffering 43% of phishing attacks in Q3

The number of brands targeted by phishers also fell, and was down 17% from Q2 to Q3

An average of 200,000 new malware samples were discovered per day in Q3

The country with the worst malware infection rate was China, where 47.23% of machines were infected, followed by Taiwan (43.38%) and Turkey (39.01%). Scandinavian countries had the lowest infection rates

The number of URLs per brand dipped 25% from Q2 to Q3, indicating that phishers were, on average and overall, creating fewer phishing URLs

Sept 01-02 2016: APWG.EU host The Bern Symposium on Global Cybersecurity Awareness Messaging: The Bern Symposium on Global Cybersecurity Awareness Messaging will address the development of cybersecurity awareness programs at the national and transnational levels. The two-day workshop will discuss the assets and relationships that are leveraged to organize and deploy a maximally effective national cybersecurity awareness campaign. View event details here

May 23 2016: APWG releases its Phishing Trends Report for Q1 2016: Some Key Findings in this report:

The Retail/Service sector remained the most- targeted industry sector during the first quarter of 2016, with 42.71% of attacks.

The number of brands targeted by phishers in the first quarter remained constant – ranging from 406 to 431 brands each month.

The United States continued its position at top on the list of nations hosting phishing websites.

In Q1 2016, 20 million new malware samples were captured.

The world's most-infected countries are led by China, where 57.24% of computers are infected, followed by Taiwan (49.15%) and Turkey at 42.52%.

New companies are constantly being targeted by phishers. Some phishers are attacking targets where consumers may least expect it.

The ten companies that are targeted most often by phishers are attacked constantly, sometimes more than 1,000 times per month.

The number of domain names used for phishing reached an all-time high.

Phishing in the new top-level domains started slowly, and we expect to see phishing levels in them rise as time goes on.

Phishing attacks were not mitigated as quickly as in the past. The median uptime of phishing attacks increased.

March 30 2014: APWG releases its Phishing Trends Report for Q3 2014: Some Key Findings in this report:

A total of 549 brands were targeted by phishers in Q4, up from the 531 targeted in the second quarter of 2014

The total number of phish observed in Q3 was 92,473, a 28 percent decrease from Q2 2014, although this may be a statistical anomaly

n July, phishers broke into Polish servers, with the result that Poland jumped to #2 in the global ranking of countries that hosted phishing content. The United States continued to be ranked number one

Over 20 million new malware samples were discovered during Q3, an average of 227,747 new malicious files every day

The United States remained the top country for hosting phishing-based Trojans and downloaders during the three month period

The STOP. THINK. CONNECT. Messaging Convention has embarked upon a campaign to establish the STOP. THINK. CONNECT. cybersecurity awareness messaging suite as a hemisphere-wide campaign, leveraging initial adoption by nation-states in North America, Central America and South America.

The number of phishing sites detected rose through the fourth quarter. Overall, there were 22 percent fewer phishing sites in the fourth quarter than there were in the third quarter. Even then, 2013 was one of the most active years on record for phishing.

During the second half of 2013, 840 unique target institutions were attacked, up significantly from the 720 found in the second half of 2013.

A number of malware families morphed constantly in efforts to avoid detection by antivirus products. Fully 37 percent of the malware variations spawned during 2013 showed up during Q4.

The United States continued to be the top country hosting phishing sites during the fourth quarter of 2013.

Phishing continues to explode in China, where Chinese phishers are victimizing the growing online population of the country. Chinese phishers were responsible for 85% of the domain names that were registered for phishing.

The average uptimes of phishing attacks declined, and were close to historic lows, pointing to some success by anti-phishing responders.

The companies (brands) targeted by phishing targets were diverse, with many new targets, indicating that e-criminals are looking for new opportunities in new places.

Mass hackings of vulnerable shared hosting providers led to 18% of all phishing attacks.

Mar 10 2014: APWG Resident Research Fellow at World Bank in Washingon, DC: Pat Cain meets with bank security experts at the World Bank to present an industrial advisory, "Phishing Past - and Future."

Dec 13 2013: APWG Secretary General at OECD in Paris With Expert Group on eCrime Metrics:APWG Secretary General is working with the Committee for Information, Computer and Communications Policy, a working group under the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry, on development of standardized statistical measures for reporting security incidents.

Nov 06 2013: APWG releases its Phishing Trends Report for Q2 2013: The APWG reports in its Q2 2013 Phishing Activity Trends Report that fraudsters are seek new victims and brands in untapped markets with some 441 brands were hijacked in April, a record high that surpassed the previous monthly high of 430 in November 2012.Download full report here

Vulnerable hosting providers are inadvertently contributing to phishing. Mass compromises led to 27 percent of all phishing attacks.

Phishing continues to explode in China, where the expanding middle class is using e-commerce more often.

The number of phishing targets (brands) is up, indicating that e-criminals are spending time looking for new opportunities.

Phishers continue to take advantage of inattentive or indifferent domain name registrars, registries, and subdomain resellers.

The average and median uptimes of phishing attacks are climbing.

July 30 2013: APWG releases its Phishing Trends Report for Q1 2013: The APWG reports in its Q1 2013 Phishing Activity Trends Report that phishing attack frequency declined 20 percent from Q4 2012 to Q1 2013, due to a precipitous drop in virtual server phishing attacks. Statistics indicate that phishing levels are returning to the levels seen prior to the record-setting highs of 2012.Download full report here

May 2013: APCERT Annual Report 2012: In March this year, APCERT commemorated the 10th anniversary during the APCERT AGM & Conference 2013 in Brisbane and the summary of the 10 year history is mentioned in the Chair's Message. The report also introduces the latest security incident trends, projects and initiatives, as well as organizational information of each member team. http://www.apcert.org/documents/pdf/APCERT_Annual_Report_2012.pdf

Phishers are breaking into hosting providers with unprecedented success, using these facilities to launch mass phishing attacks. The number of phishing attacks rose due to this technique, and attacks leveraging these resources represented 47% of all phishing attacks recorded worldwide in the second half of 2012.

The average and median uptimes of phishing attacks remained lower than the historical average.

Phishers registered more subdomains than regular domain names, while the number of domain names registered by phishers has dropped significantly since early 2011

April 24 2013: APWG releases its Phishing Trends Report for Q4 2012Find the full report and all previous reports here.